15" MBP For HDV Editiing

[NomadicTy]

Hi,

I just bought a Canon HV20, and I would like to start playing around in making short films in HD. I love the picture quality of this video camera so much, that I know I'll go crazy taking videos of everything when I travel. Would a 15" 2.4 Ghz MBP be enough for this? Or would I have to look into getting a Mac Pro to work with HDV? I'll be converting some of the vids to share them in the 'net. I'll also be doing some Photoshop, Office, etc. I will not be playing any games.

Thanks!

 

[MovieCutter]

The MBP is fine...most likely more than fine.

 

[seany916]

It'll be fine. Just be aware that render/encoding times for HDV are depressingly long. About 4-6x that of the original footage for encoding, depending on the speed of your CPU.

 

[Rizvi1]

Hi,

I just bought a Canon HV20, and I would like to start playing around in making short films in HD. I love the picture quality of this video camera so much, that I know I'll go crazy taking videos of everything when I travel. Would a 15" 2.4 Ghz MBP be enough for this? Or would I have to look into getting a Mac Pro to work with HDV? I'll be converting some of the vids to share them in the 'net. I'll also be doing some Photoshop, Office, etc. I will not be playing any games.

Thanks!

Hey, that's pretty much what I do with my MacBook Pro. I have a 15" and I have the RAM maxed out. My camera's a Sony HC1. No complaints so far, but I haven't worked with HDV Much. I make a lot of DVDs for other people of stand up and since their DVDs, I usually downconvert on import and work with DV.

I'm not sure if the problems would be the same with your canon, but when I import HDV footage into imovie, I run into interlace problems with my exports. I've been meaning to make a detailed post of runaround solutions to this problem on the main forum I hang out for my Digital Video needs (SonyHDVinfo.com), but I'll make a post here somewhere too for fellow mac people.

 

[SpaceJello]

Hey, that's pretty much what I do with my MacBook Pro. I have a 15" and I have the RAM maxed out. My camera's a Sony HC1. No complaints so far, but I haven't worked with HDV Much. I make a lot of DVDs for other people of stand up and since their DVDs, I usually downconvert on import and work with DV.

Hey curious if you connect you HC1 through firewire when you capture and where do you capture your footage? On an external drive or internal? Cause I have seen problems with drop frames with HDV capture with similar sony units and MBP.

 

[bronksy]

HDV capture..

Hey curious if you connect you HC1 through firewire when you capture and where do you capture your footage? On an external drive or internal? Cause I have seen problems with drop frames with HDV capture with similar sony units and MBP.

The best drives IMHO for video are G-raid.. i bought a little one and it's powered from the FW800 port, and works a charm.. expensive but fabulous..

As for HDV.. the secret is to capture it as DVCPRO HD. This will cut your render times waaay down.. assuming you are able to capture as this. Its an HD codec, and forgive me if you know this..but..

HDV is very compressed and the tug on the machine comes from the computing power needed to filll in the 'blanks' left by the compression onto your HDV tape.. so this 'filling' is the render.. if you capture as DVCPRO then it will seriously help your workflow because DVCPRO is not a long GOP compression..

 

[Rizvi1]

Hey curious if you connect you HC1 through firewire when you capture and where do you capture your footage? On an external drive or internal? Cause I have seen problems with drop frames with HDV capture with similar sony units and MBP.

I dont think I have any problems bringing in HDV footage onto my comp or to an external HD. But I haven't tried to bring in HDV in a while, just regular DV stuff. I use firewire only.

The best drives IMHO for video are G-raid.. i bought a little one and it's powered from the FW800 port, and works a charm.. expensive but fabulous..

As for HDV.. the secret is to capture it as DVCPRO HD. This will cut your render times waaay down.. assuming you are able to capture as this. Its an HD codec, and forgive me if you know this..but..

HDV is very compressed and the tug on the machine comes from the computing power needed to filll in the 'blanks' left by the compression onto your HDV tape.. so this 'filling' is the render.. if you capture as DVCPRO then it will seriously help your workflow because DVCPRO is not a long GOP compression..

Thanks for this advice. I'll make a note of this thread.

I don't (think I) have a G-raid drive. I Did recently get a mybook premium from WD which has firewire 800. No complaints there.

 

[SpaceJello]

Thanks for the advice bronksy. My problem is probably capturing in the wrong codec.

Curious, I know its suggest to have the capture scratch on an external drive, do you guys have your footage and scratch renders in the same drive or separate? I am trying to figure out the best set up.

And any suggestions for archiving would be great
I am just dreading for the day Blu-ray or HD-DVD wins so we can burn 25G+ disks.